


Such Little Trace of Blood

by voleuse



Category: Lovecraft Country (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:00:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28141269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: You did not understand the commonplace expression of my heart.Christina was profoundly unfamiliar with second thoughts.
Relationships: Ruby Baptiste/Christina Braithwhite/William
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Such Little Trace of Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emilise284](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emilise284/gifts).



> AU after 1.09.

**1. _I take out my ruler_**  
Christina never so much wanted to _be_ a man--not for the sake of it, anyway. But to watch as, over and over and over again, men of less intelligence and talent entered into a society from which she was barred?

Worse, even, was that she had to keep her anger laced in. To keep her father placated through barely achieved submission. William, though a poor advocate for Christina, had at least been willing to share his own knowledge with her.

Another reason to mourn him, she supposed. Another reason to keep him, or at least the concept of him, alive in some way.

She'd always been fond of his body, after all.  


**2. _I do not see what keeps the blue_**  
Ruby wasn't the first woman Christina had fucked. That had been one of her first...experiments as William. Not that anyone would blame her.

It took him a few tries to get the hang of it.

The work, though. The work was the most important. William stayed on the outskirts of the Order, only participating enough to maintain his membership. (Christina seethed even still; within the Order, William's youth kept him bound low.) He wasn't even sure if Samuel realized who he really was. 

The others, William knew, had no clue, given what a couple of them prodded him about when Samuel wasn't around. Men were, particularly when gathered in large groups, disgusting.

William perfected a stare that reminded them of both his contempt and his virility. And he took everything they shared with him, and most other things besides. Being William allowed Christina to move towards eternity.

Then Ruby changed things. Not all of them, but enough.  


**3. _undertake terrestrial forms of everything_**  
The metamorphosis was always painful, but Christina found it fitting. Like a metaphor for the acid desire that so often throbbed just beneath her skin, the ambition, the drive. 

When Ruby's first words to William were razor-sharp and bitter, he was struck silent for a moment. Any sister of Letitia, he had known, wasn't likely to be meek, but the look in Ruby's eyes and the smirk curving her lips, well. William had seen those often enough in the mirror.

_And I damn for sure know that if I was in your skin, I wouldn't even have to run._

And just like that, William was caught. 

The drive to his home was blurred with lust rather than whiskey. (His body, as with most other things, meant danger slid off his skin like water.) Ruby's hands slid into his lap as he pressed a palm on the inside of her thigh.

They stumbled up the steps and Ruby backed him through the door. She tasted like blood and whiskey and waxy lipstick. 

The look in Ruby's eyes as he thrust into her, as she came, was the triumph that William had been chasing since his birth.  


**4. _In your country  
how do you say copper  
for my country?_**  
Christina was, she had to admit, surprised when Ruby returned. While she had suspected Ruby would continue to return after her first transformation, after witnessing William's change?

That the house was still a place Ruby considered safe was unexpected. As, Christina discovered, was the relief she felt when Ruby walked in the door.

She brought Ruby down to the laboratory with a modicum of hesitation; Ruby barely blinked at it all. When Christina's dealings with Ruby's family came to light, still Ruby kept coming back.

One night, William returned later than usual, and Ruby was waiting for him. He pondered her presence as he hung up his coat. "If I kept you waiting, I apologize," William said. "Did you need more of the--"

Ruby shook her head even as she strode forward, pulled William's head to hers and made it very clear what she sought.

Afterwards, when Ruby had been sleeping, William shifted back to Christina again. After a quick shower, she slipped back under the sheets to slide her hand over Ruby's arm, her belly.

Ruby stirred. She was awake. She didn't turn to Christina, but she didn't pull away.

"I don't understand what you want from me," Christina whispered.

Facing away from Christina, Ruby replied, "I want everything you can give."  


**5. _I confess I knew the hunger_**  
Christina had fucked women before, too. Those encounters had been luxuries in every sense, whether it was a quick twisting of fingers in the back of a theatre or a night of silk and champagne. She had never known those women, though, and had cared for them even less.

This thing with Ruby was different. She knew the rage that simmered within Ruby, knew Ruby's quick eye and quicker tongue. She knew about Ruby's childhood, about her mother. About her frustration with being pigeonholed and her defiant and relentless work to move outside of that.

When Ruby asked Christina for help, Christina didn't hesitate. But when Christina found herself at odds with Ruby's family--and, she realized, the last of her own--she doubted.

She'd spent most of her life, suppressed every instinct she had to get to this point, to this very equinox lying ahead. Christina, for the first time, wondered if the prize was worth this turmoil.

When Ruby asked her to leave the family alone, Christina found herself considering it.  


**6. _Who will that feed?_**  
Christina trailed her hand against Ruby's face. Ruby turned her head to press her lips against Christina's palm.

"Please," Ruby murmured.

Christina sighed, then nodded. "I'll find another way." Ruby laced their fingers together. "I just don't know how," she confessed.

Ruby smiled. "Teach me and I can help you."  


**7. _Not just the message but the sound_**  
When Christina woke, Ruby was gone. So she showered and dressed and pondered whether she should return to Ardham anyway.

She caught the sound of humming, then, which would have been very uncharacteristic of the housekeeper or the valet. (The Braithwaites were not known for appreciating the voices of others.) Christina followed the echo of the music.

Ruby was in the library. She had wrapped herself in a silken robe and helped herself to one of the tomes from the shelves.

"What are you doing?" Christina asked. 

Ruby looked Christina up and down, then held the book up. "Learning about magic," she said.

"Oh." Christina looked at the scrollwork on the book's spine and frowned. "You shouldn't start with that one."

"You need a better card catalog," Ruby said. 

"Here," Christina said, then began pulling more books for review.  


**8. _But then we lose the idea of the sky_**  
The flaw in the spell wasn't its reliance on Atticus's blood. At least, that wasn't the flaw that would have turned Christina off her path.

It was, instead, its complete inability to multiply. The blood, the equinox, the ashes, the will. She had moved every piece into place. Everything was set. Perfect.

But she could only cast the spell on herself. Before, Christina had relished the idea of living forever, having so much time to learn, to practice, to conquer. Then she met Ruby. 

What was the point of an eternity without Ruby? 

Christina decided to begin anew.

**Author's Note:**

> Title, summary, and headings adapted from June Jordan's [Problems of Translation: Problems of Language](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48765/problems-of-translation-problems-of-language).


End file.
